Chromebooks By The Millions

“IDC expects more than 9 million Chromebooks to be sold this year, up from 6 million in 2014, and 2.6 million in 2013. Chromebooks are thin-client devices that access applications over the Internet or corporate network rather than from an internal hard-drive. Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and others sell Chromebooks, in addition to Google.”There’s some debate about whether 6 or 6.5 million ChromeBooks were sold in 2014, but there’s no debate that they have arrived. While, so far, they’ve caught on with schools, who don’t really want to be in the IT-business, these are general-purpose computers which could be used by anyone who wants a thin client but doesn’t want to run the server… There are a lot of consumers in that category. Many want a PC that turns on quickly and gives them instant access to FaceBook or their e-mail service with a bigger screen and a real keyboard compared to their smartphone.
See Enterprises can now use Dell’s Kace appliance to manage Chromebooks.

About Robert Pogson

I am a retired teacher in Canada. I taught in the subject areas where I have worked for almost forty years: maths, physics, chemistry and computers. I love hunting, fishing, picking berries and mushrooms, too.

DrLoser wrote, “this 5% Canonical shipment thing. Is there any evidence of this? How come it doesn’t show up in page-views over any particular continent of your choosing?”

Of course there is:

What percentage of PC-shipments does it take to change share of installed base from 1.72% to 2.29% in one year in Europe? There are about 400M users of the Internet there. That must amount to ~200M PCs. 0.57% of 200M is 1.14M. About 50M PCs shipped to Europe last year, so that’s a bit over 2%. Do the same analysis globally, for 1500M PCs going from 1.35% to 1.88%, .53% rise. .53% of 1500M PCs is 7.5M GNU/Linux PCs, 2.5% of 300M PCs shipped globally. So, it’s the right order of magnitude considering the big OEMs. What of all the little guys, system-builders and individuals? IDC says “others” account for ~40% share. They might be skipping a few.

Wow, I forgot about the new Linux install option. The whole package is light years beyond Windows. I feel sorry for those who are locked into Microsoft. They have some serious choices to make and they aren’t getting any easier. Microsoft is making sure of that. Microsoft it going to try to do patches on-the-fly, as Google does with Chromebooks. It ain’t gonna happen. It will be a total train wreck. I can’t wait ’till they implement that policy.

This could give ~25% increase in the rate of uptake of GNU/Linux on newish machines, considering Canonical ships 5% and ChromeOS ships a few % too.

“ChromeOS” doesn’t ship anything, Robert. What’s shipping is Chromebooks. And, as you’re always keen to point out (without, I imagine, ever having done the experiment yourself), it’s always possible to side-load another distro onto the device.

Not that anybody much ever does, of course. What would be the point? The USP of a Chromebook is precisely that it is a thin-client, zero-admin machine that gives you a browser and a few nice bonuses. That’s why the thing has a market in the first place.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s a Good Thing, particularly in places like schools. But if you seriously believe that more than 5% of Chromebook owners are going to waste their time paving over ChromeOS with anything else at all, then I would politely suggest that you are off your meds.

Now, this 5% Canonical shipment thing. Is there any evidence of this? How come it doesn’t show up in page-views over any particular continent of your choosing?

Mats Haglund wrote, “I quess we will have in 2015 easier way to install Mint/Ubuntu/Fedora/Debian etc to ChromeBook than with “croton” – direct install using USB-stick with distro image on it.”

I would guess with the larger screens and more powerful CPUs available these days, this will be a major route to GNU/Linux notebooks, saving a bundle over other offerings for just a few minutes’ effort. Anyone finding ChromeOS “limiting” has an easy upgrade-route. This could give ~25% increase in the rate of uptake of GNU/Linux on newish machines, considering Canonical ships 5% and ChromeOS ships a few % too. Given choices, consumers will take the choices. That’s something M$ managed to withold for many years.

I quess we will have in 2015 easier way to install Mint/Ubuntu/Fedora/Debian etc to ChromeBook than with “croton” – direct install using USB-stick with distro image on it. I’m planning to buy ChromeBook to my wife now when i got faster internet connection (100 Mbits/10 Mbits).

The maintenance issues with Windows is causing it to slowly dig its own grave. Patches are getting worse and more complex. It’s becoming more difficult to keep Windows up to date. The new patching system to be introduced with Windows 10 will make the situation worse, not better (Microsoft was forced to make concessions to its business customers on the new patching system.) . Customers and business users will be forced to turn to alternatives. Chromebooks can be one of those alternatives. It patches seamlessly and in the background unobtrusively. That is something Windows can never achieve. It is too poorly constructed and, in simple terms, is a total cluster.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.